Notices

I was under the impression that the front facing camera does not work other than with the mirror app.

Wrong, it can be used for video calls!

If you initiate an "internet call" via a gmail account with an N810 you will notice that the camera icon is available on the 810. Click on it to enable the camera and observe that a similar option pops up on the 900. Click on the N900 one and a video chat session begins using the front cameras of both devices.

Sweet.

The only strange thing is that the video chat can only be initiated by the 810.

Both of my devices are standard, extras-testing enabled on the 900 but not extra-devel.

Can anyone else confirm this? it seems that the N900 is ready for the front facing camera to be used.

I've used it to make a successful call to a laptop once. The video cut out halfway through my chat though.

Yupe, it only works if the video call is initiated from a computer, or in your case, n810. It however does not allow video call if the call is made from n900.
Anyways, it had been discussed couple of times a while back, for example:
http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php...ighlight=gtalk
http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php...ighlight=gtalk

Were you using pr1.1 (I am), maybe they have improved the gstreamer code which handles the video.

Ill try this with my own laptop (Ubuntu/karmic) and let you know how it goes.